Symbiosis
by Alex Warlorn
Summary: Pilotless Mass Produced Ultimate Xs! Can Bit and Vega prove the human factor counts? Can they prove to themselves?
1. Default Chapter

Symbiosis

See Joy Ride and Obsolete Components for Vega and Bit's POVs.

"Hey Bit can I come in? Well I'm coming in anyway!" Jamie used his override code to force open the Zoid Champion's bedroom door. Though it was ten in the evening, Jamie the 'Wild Eagle' was wide awake, this was pretty normal for the team strategist but there was an urgency in the pilot's voice that was normally only there during a grievous arena battle. 

"Bit there's something I need to talk to with everyone and that includes you!" Ever since a strange communication with Vega Obscura, former Back Draft Syndicate top rank pilot, Bit had stopped piloting Ligar. It was bizarre. Thankfully they still had a shield Ligar in cold storage from a year or two back and Doc had finally got around to fixing the stupid thing. 

However, Bit's entire style had changed, it was like he wasn't even trying to win anymore, Jamie and Leena had to pick up the slack, especially since Brade had up and joined Team Fugal, the Blitz team, was now reduced to three. Thankfully Leena was slowly learning how to aim, and Jamie was learning to use his piloting skills without lapsing into his Wild Eagle persona. Bit however . . .

"Whatever." The former junk dealer mumbled. 

"Bit!" Jamie snarled. "It's about Ligar!" 

Five minutes later . . .. 

Bit's face was the same uncharacteristic solemnest it had shown for months now, but at least now he was actually looking at something instead of staring into space. 

"I'll get to the point." Jamie started, everyone was dress haphazardly Jamie saying it was important they talked right away. Of course, for Leena weather it was a nightie or a dress it was always form fitting, and doc well . . . he kept falling asleep. 

Jamie remained standing the storage base's discussion room. "I was checking out the new an hour ago when I saw a report that someone had hacked into the ZBC's main computer and stolen two Zoid designs. As you know, while stats ARE allowed as public knowledge the inner workings of a Zoid are kept private. Apparently they . . ."

Leena mumbled. "Can you get to the point so I can get back to my beauty sleep?" 

Jamie flushed. "Fine! The point? The schematics stolen from the archives were the Berserk Fury! And the Ligar Zero!"

Now everyone was paying attention. 

"I think everyone here can do the math. There's only one reason anyone would want data on the insides of the only two registered Ultimate X's on Zebus." 

Jamie thought on the bright side this might be good for Bit, he actually took part in the conversation. "Jamie I DO know what you're implying! But think for a minute." Bit said THAT?! "The Organoid System is a black box design. Even the ZBC and main Zoid producers were never able to figure it out. Whoever did this wasted their time."

"Maybe . . . maybe not, but YOU think for a minute Bit, if they can't figure out the Organoid System just from data they stole from the ZBC . . . what do you think they're going to do next?"

Bit was silent, and Leena saw inside his head the hamster running so fast it broke the wheel. "We need to find Vega! He'll be a target too!" 

Doc spoke in his knowing voice. "There's no way to know who we're dealing with. It's not Back Draft that's clear, they already have the Fury, they wouldn't need the Ligar, even if 90% of their top officers weren't in prison and they were still trying to pull themselves together after the disaster for them at the Royal Cup."

"Your point?" Jamie asked. 

"They might need two Ultimate X just to figure out what similarities they have. Who knows, maybe they plan to just take the black boxes apart and figure out their insides. But anyway, we have no way of knowing how long it's going to take them to realize they'll need a live model."

"And . . ."

"We should all get some sleep and picked this up in the morning!" Everyone else in the room fell over. "It might be a few days before they make their move."

"Doc you can't be serious!" Jamie pleaded. 

Bit wasn't hearing any of this, he was at the vid-phone, he scrolled down the list of calls, thankful that Doc was too lazy to clear out the log and make more room for memory. Finally he found it. Where Vega had called him from. The boy might not even be there anymore. But it was better than nothing.

"I'll be out for a while, don't wait up."

Leena stood up indignant. "And where do you think you're going?"

"I have to warn Vega! Fury means the world to him! And these guys might be killers! Vega is in serious danger!" 

"You taking Ligar?" Leena asked. 

"Of course I'm taking shield!" 

"I meant Zero! You'll need to get there as fast as you can. Though have you ever considered going off on your own is suicide?! And we'd just let you go off and make yourself a giant target?"

Jamie went between them. "And did either of you consider just hitting '*' '8' '2' on the key pad after loading up the date with Bit and Vega in the vid-phone?"

Both sweat dropped. They hadn't. 

Flames, comments, good or bad, corrections, suggestions, rants, and ideas on what should happen next, and the occasional constructive criticism all-welcome. 

Please, don't **just** say 'MORE!' those reviews leave me kinda empty. 


	2. Chapter 2

Zoids

Thank you mysterious unnamed reviewer for the idea of Zero and Fury's thoughts.

Bit almost bit through his lip waiting for the phone to answer, a million ideas going through his head on Vega's fate: none of them pretty. These men no doubt were dangerous. They would be willing to do anything to get what they wanted. And he doubted they had a warped sense of fair play like Backdraft. And outside his Zoid Vega was still just a kid. Easy pickings, weather Vega admitted it or not.

After an eternity the vid-phone finally got a connection.

Bit yelled at the receiver. "Vega. Listen to me carefully. You have to take Fury and go now!"

The face of Vega's caretaker, Sarah, calmly replied, "Hello, welcome to the Obscura residence, we aren't in right now to take your call, but leave a message and we'll get back to you as soon as can." A quick 'BEEP' message appeared on the screen for a split second before the recorder started. It didn't record much of anything however, as Bit was long gone, having made tracks as soon he realized he was talking to an answering machine.

Weather he was taking Leela's advice, or if it was just force of habit, Bit did indeed take Liger Zero out of the storage hanger, barely having wits enough to open the reinforced steel double door before taking off into the desert night.

While Vega wasn't Bit's favorite person, (the whole 'tried to vaporize Bit's friends and teammates' had left a mark,) Bit related with Vega. They were both Ultimate X pilots, the finalist in that year's Royal Cup, and both had passion for the dangerous yet intense sport that was Zoid battles. Plus if Vega bought it, then Bit would never have his chance to prove his win hadn't been just luck in that rematch Vega promised.

While Leela's weapon covered GunSniper wasn't the quickest Zoid on the planet, let alone in comparison to a Liger model, Jamie's Rainos broke the sound barrier the way Doc broke budgets…at least in theory.

By the time Rainos was in the air, Liger Zero was already a dot on the horizon and that was in Zero's basic model armor for crying out load! On the ground in her own machine, Leela wasn't a happy lady.

"Well that's just peachy!" Leela spat, why was she even bothering to go after that twit?

"Don't worry." Jamie com'ed in. "We know exactly where he's headed. We'll just show up a little late to things."

"I just hope my dad's right about whoever did this won't go after Berserk Fury until later."

"The news report I talked about said the system hack happened yesterday mourning, and to be realistic, we have no idea when these people will make their next move."

"Come on! They can't have gone after Vega just when you told us about it, and the chances are just as good they'd hit our base going after Liger, assuming of course they DO go after either Zoid at all. For all we know, it was just a couple of computer geeks without anything better to do."

"Unless they, assuming they do want the black box information, saw the news report, realized they had been found out, and decided to step up their time table."

"Maybe but –come on—there's no way that they're at Vega's right now hijacking Beserk Fury so Bit can come to the rescue at the last moment of his old rival, that would be TOO contrived!"

Bit never noticed or cared about his teammates following him: oh sure logically he knew they'd follow him, but Bit wasn't in a logical state of mind, even less than usual, as shown before.

As it turned out, Vega's homestead so to speak was only one or two hundred miles away from the Blitz Team's hang out, and when you're in the cockpit of a streamline metal kitty like Zero, two hundred miles was next to nothing. The landscape was nothing but a blur to Bit, he did his best not to think about the zoid he was piloting, the one he wondered had just –used- him to be able to fight, much as Vega had the exact same doubts about the sleeping Berserk Fury. Bit got no answer from Zero about the subject, and Fury was 'asleep' as Vega called it since the Royal Cup, so there was no answer from that killing machine.

Bit saw the pitch black Whale King long before reaching the resting place of the King of Unsanctioned Games' abode. Last time he check Vega's home wasn't mobile. While it might of seemed cliché for the flying fortress to be colored blacked, it was a logical choice for a paint job if you didn't want everyone to see you at night, and Bit could see the machine had no marking lights at all. Bit had only seen it due to Zero's night vision. Not many if any Zoid battles happened at night, so it wasn't a well-known attribute of Bit's machine.

As he got closer he saw a large violet armored mass being pulled into the carrier's underside. Bit couldn't help but recognize the load, his fight with this thing and it's pilot on the deck of that old ultrasaurus had been nothing sort of life and death.

The only Zoids Bit saw besides the Whale King were a couple basic model Raptors on the ground right below the Berserk Fury. How the Hell had these yahoos managed to capture the Berserk Fury? Sure Vega said it was off-line, but no way it wouldn't reactivate itself if it sensed a threat!?

Well, that wouldn't matter soon enough! Bit was almost grateful to Backdraft for all the real life battles opposed to the regulated matches other Zoid pilots regularly went through. Amazingly taking a inking of strategy Bit zigzagged Liger as he moved in closer as fast he could in his pattern, not wanting to give the enemy the chance to finish loading the Fury.

The two raptors turned and fired at the unknown intruder, their shots always hitting where Liger had been less than half a second before. Timing it between the cool down space between shots, Liger's laser claws melee weapons decapitated the pair at once, disabling them. The entire face-off had taken less than fifteen seconds.

They came down from the ship with intention and purpose armed with the speed of a whip, and the strength of a boa constrictor. One second Bit was on the ground, the next the ground was pulling away from him as he was rocked back and forth like the penny in almost empty piggy bank.

Liger Zero struggled truly like a wild cat, but in vain. The blaster on Zero's underside was in a semi-fixed position, and his laser claws were useless if Bit couldn't move the legs.

Bit realized far too late that his Zoid was now snared in the same impossibly strong cables that held the Berserk Fury prisoner.

"Hello," Said a snide voice over the audio-com. "Bit Cloud I assume? You know you just really made our lives a whole lot simpler by rushing in and –giving- us your Zoid as well instead of waiting for us to take it from you."

"Shut up!" Bit barked.

"To think you're the Royal Cup Champion." The voice continued to itself more than anything. "Fun fact about Zoids. Seventy percent of the servos in ninety percent of all models are all designed to contract rather than expand, just like the jaws of a crocodile, true this doesn't really help much in an all out war with multiple enemies, but when you only have one or two targets, have the element of surprise, and the motor strength of an entire Whale King at your disposal, you can make some great catches, I don't think we'll be throwing –you- back any time soon."

Any curses Bit wanted to throw at the voice were cut off as the connection was. Like the opening scene from that twentieth century film with the light sabers, Berserk Fury and Liger Zero along with their human pilots were pulled side the much larger vessel like prey into a beast's mouth.

Reduced to playing catch up, the two other members of the Blitz Team were sentenced to arriving just in time to see the white and violet zoids pulled within the black Whale King, and the giant flying ship going from a snail's pace to a sonic boom in a shock wave that shook the whole desert and even Jamie and Rainos unable to catch up.

Leela cursed. "Dammit how can a Whale King move that fast?!"

Jamie balked. "I'd never seen Whale King engines like those before."

"Think it could be one of Leaon's new designs?" While the man was fixated on ruining Leela's father for accidentally (yes accidentally) staking a claim on her mother before Leaon had a chance to, he was a brilliant scientist and robotics designer.

"No way." Jamie shot that one down. "This isn't his style, and he'd have bored us to death with a prepared speech about his IQ and your dad's genecology by now."

"Point taken." Leela noticed a waving figure emerging from the building. "Hmmm? Whose that?"

After the cockpit had been forced open from the outside, Bit had found himself staring down more gun barrels than he thought any one group in the world had. He actually would have felt better if he were looking down the barrel of a laser canon rather than a vast collection of 'bullet spitters.' Laser cannons he saw every day, machine guns, not so much. The 'going to have to remove me kicking and screaming' part of the plan he was working on before came to a halt before it even began.

Bit was moved into a holding cell for the duration of the Whale King's short flight. Bit also saw Vega, Bit was happy to see the kid was all right, but the expression on the tike's face could have turned fresh grapes sour. The two were dumped in opposite cells only being told repeatedly to be quiet to any questions to their captors Vega asked or any sarcastic remark Bit made. One thing was quite clear. Vega wasn't really thinking on the plus side that Fury had finally woken up.

"Vega? What happened?"

"I was distracted, and they got lucky, I won't offer any excuses further than that."

"You lose-zazs be quiet!" Ordered one of the armed guards who looked like the stereotypical thug with a gun. Even if they weren't behind iron bars at the moment, Bit's fights in hand in hand had been limited to fist fights and bar room brawls, and Vega had even less that, turning on these men wasn't an option right now.

Thankfully the trip didn't last all that long. Unthankfully they were left to sit and do nothing for hours after the engines had died, the guards were very particular about them not saying so much as a word to one another.

Bit wondered how they could go at speeds like this and not get pressed into pudding. He wish Doc was here, he could have likely have taken on glance at it and figured it and spoken it in terms Bit could understand and still have time for Doc to play with Doc's Zoid models. As it was he was left wondering until the guards at long last told the two pilots to get out and move in front of them, -again-.

Bit had to give Vega credit, the kid didn't panic or cry once, Bit had no delusions that Vega somehow thought of Zoid battles as just a game where no one got hurt, but seeing the kid act like this, Bit wondered what Vega previous years had been like to make him this way at such a tender age. However it wasn't like Bit could just sit down and ask him.

'Escorted' out the Whale King's side, Bit saw they hadn't left the desert. Sadly Bit didn't see any land marks that he could identify, not that it would do much good if he couldn't get back in Liger.

The structure they were lead into was painted the same colors as the desert as a token means of trying to stay undetected from the sky. The building was only a couple stories tall but the windowless hanger that flanked it on one side was nearly half the size of the Whale King. Bit had spent enough time being a scrap dealer to know a mobile operation when he saw one. No way they'd just leave the Whale King exposed like this unless they were always on the move and didn't want to spend the money and resources constructing a shelter large enough to house it with each new base.

Shown all the compassion and consideration prison guards shown inmates, Bit and Vega were forced along, Vega saying nothing the whole time.

Taken down a moderately lit hallway the two found themselves in a completely out of location painted white office with red wood furniture and a huge landscape painting on one side of the wall. The lights were so bright to be painful with the white wash walls.

Sitting casually behind the desk was a man in his late thirties, dressed in a sharp business suit with a head of blond hair contrary to popular culture was indeed his own. He looked at them with a totally fake hospitality and motioned for them to come closer and the guards emphasized his 'request.'

Bit and Vega both knew this type. It was someone so self-confident they liked to greet prisoners in person so they would have to endure his face and the sound of his voice. Bit found himself feeling a tad more respect for Harry Champ the pampered rich snob who actually fought his own Zoid battles.

"Greetings gentlemen, welcome to our humble installation, you are about to become a great stepping stone in The Company's endeavors. And you will be my ticket off this meteorite indented, sand infested, backwater, underdeveloped, economically worthless rock on the border between Nowhere and Nobody Cares."

The totally unmasked insults on Z had Vega grinding his teeth, Bit amazingly didn't take a punch at him and get beaten to a pulp and or shot and instead shouted out the obvious question.

"Just who are you anyway?! Are you part of Backdraft?!" While Jamie had said such a thing was unlikely and everything pointed to Vega being an unwilling part of this, Bit wanted to know for sure.

"Forgive the melodrama, but my name doesn't really matter since you won't live long enough for it to matter. And no, I am not part of Backdraft. I represent the marketing and development branch of a very large weapons manufacturer who shall remain anonymous for obvious reasons. As for the predictable question of 'what we're doing', a picture is worth a thousand words." The man touched a switch next to the wall-sized painting he was standing before. The landscape picture became transparent revealing a large work bay beyond.

The child and young man gasped. Beserk Fury and Liger Zero. Both of them with a monotone gray paint job. Someone with too much imagination would think they had violated their Zoids and their reprogramming had somehow caused them to change color, but Bit and Vega both knew their own Zoids well enough to know what these things were.

"Clones." Bit whispered. "You built –clones- of the Berserk Fury and Zero?!"

"Clones are a word for something that's alive, these are just machines."

"But how? There's no way you could hope to have built these Zoids so fast!"

"It's very easy with the right equipment." The man boasted directing their attention to what looked like one of the scanners that were used on Zoids by the ZBC but far less, well, crude, it sat proudly just in view of the window within the work bay before them. "We got this little do-dad from Earth. It's more advance than anything on the face of planet Z. It took a couple of tries to get everything, but the data on the Organoid system is ours. The majority of the body was done and done long before you were brought here. We wouldn't have had to go through all this trouble of we could have just FOUND an Organoid, but they seemed to vanish off the face of the planet decades ago. So you two should feel honored. "

They had copied the organoid system. What havoc could be unleashed on the world, all worlds, with that? "Sadly with the recent collapse of the Global Empire of China on Earth, leaving a planet of mostly peace loving democracies, we've lost our main buyer. Thus, if we're to win clients on other worlds, we need to show them a product that blows away the competition. AI weapons have been considered crude, stupid, and ultimately inadaptable. –However-, the organiod system, it is light years ahead of any thing else on the market. Of course since the locals are so protective of their little pets, even the constructed one, getting our hands on Zoids in the past was non-cost effective. And ultimately the Zoids were not that superior to other war machines produced by our company. But now we will present the galaxy with the first true learning weapon with no need for human pilots. Once we have our demo, we can begin mass production."

Vega would be the one to ask the next question finally breaking his silence. "So why didn't you just killed us?"

"If we're to find a buyer for these war machines back on Earth and other worlds, we need to show what they can do! These Ultimate Xs have been down loaded with all the memory files and combat data your Zoids posses. So there's no difference in terms of experience you see. Except of course the tiny detail of a little creative what you would call 'brain surgery' for robots so these models can only think of who is their enemy, who is whoever we tell them it is, and who isn't, which is of course The Company."

"Monster." Bit breathed under his breath.

Vega thought little of the idea that you could just 'copy and paste' combat experience. "And where do we come in?"  
"You're the Zoids' handy cap: the controls have been hardwired so they can't override your commands. With all the information we have we don't need the original models anymore, plus throwing you in has the add bonus of making use of you rather than just shooting you and leaving you to rot in the desert."

Bit felt relief at the indirect proof that Liger was all right. Either Vega didn't care or never had any doubts.

"What's to keep us from tearing you apart after we're at the control?" Vega said with a shark's grin. The man gave the kid a bigger one standing up and leaning so close that his nose was inches from Vega's face.

"You aren't going to live that long."

It was still night, not that it really mattered, Vega and Bit would have been made to fight no matter what time it was. Both had barely gotten any rest in their 'comfy' holding cells. However it was either stay awake or die right now, and fighting under critical condition was decidedly something both pilots had a good deal of experience in. Bit had made the mistake of complaining and had the worst tasting coffee ever poured down his throat.

Both their machines were waiting for them in the freezing desert night. Their 'buddies' the guards helped them along into their Zoids.

Both pilots knew better than to try and hold these guards hostage once they were at the controls of the 'very, very much larger than humans' Zoids, these kinds of people, didn't put a high stake on low pay staff. Vega wanted to step on them out of spite, but was hoping to learn something useful during the businessman's predictable gratuitous 'prepare to die' speech.

"Good bye, and good luck, not that it'll help." The guard snickered. "By the way, don't bother trying to call for help or the ZBC over the communication system. We made sure to completely tear that out before you ever got inside. You boys are on your own. Oh, and try to last three minutes but no more than five, I have money riding on you."

Bit remarked, "I'll be sure to disappoint you and your gambling partner." Vega didn't say a word only giving the armed men a cold glare as the Zoids closed the cockpits on their own.

The clones marched out of the storage bay Bit and Vega had seen before, in perfect step with each other, like puppets. It was rather chilling looking at these things that were the spitting image of their Zoid partners. While they were supposed to have the Organoid system as well, there was just this, emptiness to them. What was all the more unsettling was that they didn't move like Sleeper Zoids at all. No simple minded AI drove these things. Bit remembered a term he had endured listening to when Jamie was tried to force some culture on the other pilots: the word was homunculi. Human beings created through Alchemy that had their own free will but lacked an immortal soul or conscience. They were just an idea created from the popular culture of the time before alchemy evolved into chemistry. But looking at these Zoids, Bit would swear, that he was about to do battle with the real life counter parts of the legendary bogymen of alchemy.

For Vega, he had long since stopped having nightmares about bogymen, he had enough violence and fear in his waking hours to make up for anything his imagination could create. These things, he didn't know –what- to make of them, if they were Organoids why would they just attack whoever they were told to? Or had these men hardwired these newborn Zoids to do so? But wouldn't that defeat the whole purpose of having a thinking weapon? What had that businessman called it? 'Creative brain surgery?'

Whatever. It didn't matter, that wasn't the point here. The point was living to see the dawn.

The businessman's voice echoed over a gigantic load speaker from the compound, in particular a stumpy tower on the compound's roof. "Please forgive us for not having a Dark Judge available, we know how fond you Zoid pilots are of theater even in the face of death, but seeing how your chances for victory are less than zero point one percent, I don't really think there a need for a robot just to declare a winner. So allow me to fill in the obligatory role: FIGHT!" The gray liger and gray charged fangs and claws drawn.

Neither Vega nor Bit so much as touched the controls. Their doubts and uncertainties coming through full force. Instead their Zoids defended themselves on their own. They could not, not override commands if there were none.

Zero dodged as the gray liger used its Strike Laser Claw to try and dismember Zero. The Berserk Fury brought its barrier shield to front in full force as three charged particle guns hit full force, redlining the heat on Berserk Fury's Zoid core.

Vega and Fury both idly thought on how this was what it felt to be hit by their trademark attack. No wonder so many thought of the attack as over powered. And here Vega thought they had been just whining.

When the gray fury needed time to recharge for another blast Berserk Fury leapt from the giant glass crater left from the blast: landing a head butt right in the bow section. The gray fury responded slashed at Berserk Fury's back armor getting at the vulnerable components underneath. And still Vega did nothing. He wouldn't, he couldn't: he was just a child in a joy ride. He wouldn't be Fury's handy cap.

The blasts from the gray liger's distance weapon were easy enough for Zero to avoid on his own, the surprise attack from the resulting wall of smoke wasn't quite so as the laser claw tore off one of Zero's mane plates. The gray liger did a rebound and took a bite at Zero's tail, it was a miracle it wasn't torn off, however, Liger still roar. Who said Zoids couldn't feel pain?

The two furies' rotor blades were caught up in each other, the gray fury began to charge up the charge particle gun in its mouth. Berserk Fury could have charged up it's own head canon to fire, but while kamikaze wasn't that big a problem, dying arm in arm with a clone of itself was. The Fury rammed again, forcing the gray fury's beam to miss, barely.

For the gray zoids all thoughts and ideas that filled their minds centered and orbited around one ultimate concept that was absolute. 'Kill the enemy.'

To go on the offensive was to fall into a snare, to go on the defensive was to have your defense smashed. This was the trap the two Zoids were in, in particular because the originals were half of what they were supposed to be.

Stupid boy! Don't you dare! Don't you dare give up without a fight! I know you're not that weak so don't pretend to be! If you were this weak I would have crushed you flat the moment you dared try to enter me. I would have smashed the cockpit against a wall before letting you give me any commands! I don't believe in weakness. When this world began to change, when Spectra died, my female and an Organoid like me, Res was devastated. But Raven held onto Res, kept Res from surrendering, because he knew Res wasn't that weak. When the same unknown alignment that had struck down Spectra began to eat away at my insides, I didn't give up. I sentenced myself to be entombed in this body until it might as well have been me, until I had forgotten what it was Raven always called me, even on his death bed when his black hair had long since turned to white.

It saw it in you when I sized you up and realized you were sizing me up, I could kill you without even trying and you sized me up! That same narrow practicality, that same unbreakable stance in the face of death, it was like looking at Raven again. Yet there was something more, something Raven never had. That smile, that smile that hid a desire for the thrill of armed combat knowing full well the reality and aftermath of such conflict. Something in all honestly, I fond rather approving. SO GET OFF YOUR SOFT FLESHY BUTT AND SHOW ME WHAT I SAW IN YOU THAT DAY!

Vega saw the images flash on the computer screen: all of them showing all of the pilot's controls were in perfect working over again and again.

"Fury…do you really need me?"

But, at the final battle, the reaction time, it had been so much better with Vega out of the way: Bit and Zero had almost lost in the face of the stand alone Zoid.

Then why had Fury lost?

A memory struck Vega, from before he had entered the world of adults, back when he was still just another kid who loved Zoids. He had seen Sarah using a computer program to manage her bills. He remembered saying how smart the machine was. Sarah however told him that the machine was just faster, Vega himself she told him was very likely smarter than the program. It might have been faster, was not to be wiser. She said it was similar to the difference in a one-on-one and multiple verses singular match ups in a Zoid battle. While one person making the decisions only could make things go faster, but when you had more heads in a group meant there were less likely to make mistakes.

Why had Fury lost (?): because in that final leg of the battle, Vega wasn't there to fight with him. All this time! He had been a stupid child!

"You wanted me to tell me didn't you Fury, but you didn't want a pilot who couldn't figure it out on their own. After all, neither of us have ever tolerated weaklings as partners. All right Fury, let's sweep away these things like the shadows they are!" The Berserk Fury let out a bloodthirsty call: it was not a pleasant sound to all but Vega.

Come on Bit what are you waiting for?! This isn't time for you to leave me out on my own here! I know I make command decisions sometimes but this isn't the time for payback! This thing with my face is going to tear us to pieces! What are you doing in there sleeping?! Wake up Bit!

When I first met you I saw so much of Van in you, that friendly yet cocky smile, that fixation on Zoids that went beyond mere interest in them as tools. It had been so long since I had met anyone like you. Leon Taros came close, but he was far too detached for my tastes. Yet I kept hoping, instead of simply leaving this Zoid body to die on the outside. That was when I met you Bit. Forgive me if I never tell you this to your face since your ego is big enough, but you gave me my reason to live again!

The controls literally pushed themselves against Bit, seeming to insist that the pilot take them.

"You –want- me to pilot you Zero?"

'Of course he does! If you don't then you'll find out he doesn't really need you and you'll never pilot him again! A stand alone Zoid is not allowed in official battles.'

'He's not stupid! He knows that a wild Zoid fighting wouldn't last long! He knows that this gamble is his only way to still be able to fight!'

"Zero…isn't the Berserk Fury. Zero doesn't just live for fighting. I don't know why the Zoidians created the first Zoids. But I don't think, me, stupid me, that it was –just- as weapons of war. The time that Zero's been the most happy, was went we raced, when we ran through the desert and never stopped until we had to… Zero would never put being able to fight over his life! Those tracks through the desert night and day… " Zero made a sound of confirmation. "Zero. All right then, come on! We'll take these cheap copies out together!"

And so the battle changed, the gray zoids suddenly found their prey not reacting quite as fast as they were a moment before, but defying all logic were successfully dodging their attack and returning with their own! Great cat hybrids entangled themselves. Tyrant lizard kings bashed heads. The gray Zoids suddenly found themselves not in a combat situation but a savage melee! Where before the gray Zoids been in control of this battle, now this meeting of tooth and claw was dead-locked!

It was like fighting a mirror. A broken, ugly mirror image, but a reflection all the same, easy way to fix that thou.

Bit/Zero asked over the outer speaker. "Switch bizzaro twins?"

Fury/Vega replied. "With pleasure." The two pairs past each other and brought their tooth and nail to bear on the opposite number of their rival.

Vega charged the triple particle gun at minimum power and fired, creating a wall of dust, it hadn't hit the gray liger.

Fury/Vega side stepped knowing what was coming as the gray liger burst from the smoke cloud slash at where Fury/Vega were a second ago and instead was struck in the middle by Fury/Vega's massive tail sending it head over paws onto the ground before righting itself a heartbeat later.

Fury/Vega snarled. "Don't you dare think you can use the same maneuver on us twice!"

The gray fury charged, shafting left and right as it went, Zero/Bit firing off duel canons on their underside making no hits and only kicking up dust. The gray fury halted, waited a moment, then swung its tail at where it predicted it's enemy would come out. Instead it took a laser blast to the side from where Zero/Bit had sneaked around using the dust cloud as a distraction.

Zero/Bit taunted. "Come ON, is that all you've got?"

Truly, the television networks would have made a killing broadcasting this battle if they had known about it, and Backdraft would have likely been able to completely rebuild itself from the bets placed. Sadly, neither had a clue about this battle for survival, and the only outside observers to witness it, could not appreciate it.

This was no mere fight. This was rebirth, the reforgeing of chains and the rebuilding of partnerships. And this time, there would be no breaking them. This night would solidify the existences of four forever.

Fury/Vega knew the gray liger was simply too fast for distance attacks, and the Fury simply too clumsy in melee combat. Simply, yea right. Vega/Fury charged head on for a head-butt, lifting its legs off the ground and blasting foreword with its boosters. The gray liger leaped clear into the air, dodging the attack perfectly. As it was falling down to Earth the gray liger changed position to bring its fangs down the Fury's backside. Vega/Fury twisted in a corkscrew so it's front faced the sky. The rotor blade connected to a point and stabbed upwards, impaling the gray machine as it came down. One set through the head, the other through its Zoid core.

Fury/Vega skidded as they hit the ground, doing only minor damage as they got up on their feet and tossed the dead Zoid away freeing their weapons. The gray Zoid bounced a couple times before coming to its final rest on a nondescript piece of Earth, were it did NOT regenerate from its damage to attack again.

Bit/Zero dodged the short charged laser bolts from the gray fury's rotor blades, their claws starting to glow gold, the tell tale sign of the laser claw strike's charge up. The gray fury knew it didn't have time to charge up for a full particle gun discharge so instead it braced itself and moved it's rotor blades into spear point to stab Bit/Zero as they came down from the flying leap that always accompanied the laser claw technique.

Bit/Zero's laser claw strike however wasn't aiming at the gray fury's rotor blades or its throat. Bit/Zero dived down across the ground, instead of leaping into the air, and tore at the leg joins of the gray fury as they went right underneath it, knocking it off balance.

It would only take a moment for the gray fury to decided to crush them with its own weight. Bit/Zero taking a page of J.R.R. Tolkien's novel and stabbed their claws upward, relying on the force of gravity and the gray fury's own weight to bring their claws right through the armor, and into the Zoid core within. The gray Zoid roared as it felt its heart, its center pierced. Bit/Zero strained the servos as they pushed the larger Zoid ever so slightly to the side to keep it from crushing them flat in death and instead landing on its side with a ground shaking thud, kicking up a giant cloud of dust from which the gray Zoid did NOT suddenly get up unharmed as it slowly cleared.

A sudden silence covered the battlefield, the only sound being the pilot's rapid breaths and the victory roars of their Zoids. Neither of the gray painted Zoids moved from their limp positions on the ground. It was over, they, the originals and the flesh and blood humans, won.

With a predatory smile Vega slowly turned the Fury's charged particle guns on the observation station the men had been watching the entire fight from.

"What was that you said about us not living that long?" Vega called out over his Zoid's the load speaker the audio and vid-com still non-functional.

Inside the observation room the man shouted over the place's own outside load speaker. "You don't scare me you little-agh!" The man was knocked out from behind by one of his teammate who quickly shouted.

"We surrender!" Many others cursed they had decided to watch this fight instead of keeping a crew on the Whale King!

"Awe nuts." Vega sulked having really wanted to blow the lot of them to atoms. Maybe he could do that anyway, but that might not sit well with Bit, and as much as Vega loved conflicts mixed in a red haze, he didn't want to spoil the victory just yet.

That was when the sun at last made its appearance creating a sunrise neither pilot could ignore, nor could they ignore the outline against the rising star's shape.

Bit and Vega looked to see the shape of the Rainos coming over the horizon followed by the GunSniper on the ground. The pair apparently figured out that their audio coms were busted for once in shouting distance the GunSniper's canopy opened up revealing one very ticked off lady Zoid pilot. Bit took common courtesy and opened his as well along with Vega. This might have seemed a foolish move on their part in a combat situation if not the fact they had already pretty much devastated their opposer's fighting force and moral already.

Jamie and the Rainos already began to buzz the building calling up the ZBC on his equipment.

"You are in soooo much trouble Bit! When I get my hands on you you're gonna wish those doppelgangers tore you apart!" Leela stood up from her control seat alternately pumping both arms. Apparently they had caught the climax of the fight.

"Heh, I can't wait." Bit smirked in the face of the raging red head.

"Vega my baby! Are you alright?!" A voice sounding very very familiar to Vega called from the GunSniper's back seat.

"Sarah!" Vega cried back. He actually fought back tears knowing she was all right. "C-Calm down, i-it's not like I've haven't been in a Zoid battle before!" He halted, his voice betraying his relief.

The woman's face was the picture of relief. "I was just so worried, I didn't know, I've always been there to watch you before, I've never had to 'not know' before', Vega, I'm just so happy you're alive!"

Vega dug deep to find his bravado. "Come on, it's not like you had anything to worry about, after all, am I the King aren't I?"

Bit couldn't resist. "Last time I checked I was the best remember?"

"Not for long." Vega return. "We'll knock you off your little throne soon enough. Right partner?" The Fury lowered its head in what was an attack stance.

"Bring it on!" Bit returned. "Things have been kinda boring since Liger and me whipped ya."

"We'll get ready for plenty of boring fights after we knock you all the way down to class C!"

"You wish!"

"I don't need to wish!"

Leela couldn't help but notice both pilots were beaming with every word they said. "Guess they really are friends."

Three weeks later, Vega with Fury, Pierce in Stormsorder and Stoller with Elephander, stood off against the Blitz team in the Backdraft group's first official match. Leela and Jamie weren't so sure about facing off against these normally solo pros all at once, but Bit couldn't be happier. And from his cockpit inside Liger Zero, he looked it.

"Alright Liger, we did it before and we'll do it again!" The white cat growled in agreement.

Vega likewise at his controls looked more alive than he had since the Royal Cup. "Ready to give it one more try Fury?" The metal rex roared. "I thought so."

The lady White Judge scanned the battlefield and began. "The Backdraft Team Verses The Blitz Team! And Ready…FIGHT!"

--FIN

Hats off to Charlie Brown, Star Wars, and Ghost In The Shell.

Comment, suggestions, insults, flames, positives, negatives, and occasional constructive criticism all welcome.


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